


Love After Wartime

by rosefox



Category: Original Work
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-War, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-13 23:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13581306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosefox/pseuds/rosefox
Summary: When the armistice comes, Horselord Juniver and Spearman Karit plan for a future out of uniform.





	Love After Wartime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowynight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowynight/gifts).



News of the armistice reached them just as the sun rose over the distant hill where the other army was massed like so many ants. Spearman Karit felt her skin shiver and crawl as it always did just before a message came through. Then a slit of nothingness opened in the sky and the voice of the Selarese Supreme Commander boomed, _**"CEASE YOUR FIGHTING. THE WAR IS ENDED."**_

Some were suspicious at first, but it was clear that a similar message had been received by the Dawarene forces, for no attack came that morning. They were informed to neither surrender nor expect the Dawarene to do so; a Dawarene princess had agreed to marry the nephew of the Selarese queen, some trades of strategic lands and valuable goods had been made, and the two nations were now to live in amity, as though there had never been a war at all. Slowly, cautiously, the Selarese forces withdrew and regrouped and prepared to go home.

That evening, Horselord Juniver found Karit up in a blossoming apple tree, smoking a cigar. Juniver heaved herself up into the tree and straddled the branch. Karit nodded to her and murmured, "M'lord." 

Juniver held out a hand and Karit passed her the cigar. They smoked together in silence, tensing as the ember glowed red and then relaxing when no arrows came seeking them.

"My uncle was in the Beran War," Karit said eventually. "His father gave him a cigar when he enlisted, and said he'd know the war was really over when he could smoke it in the dark without fear. My father..." She paused, thinking of how he'd shouted when she'd emerged from her room in her uniform, enlistment letter in hand, to say farewell. "Well, I rolled my own cigar. But this seemed like a good night to light it up."

"I'm still afraid," Juniver said, passing it back. Karit took a deep drag and let the ash fall down into the leaves below them. There was no fear of fire; it had been a wet spring, and most of their fighting had been done in ankle-deep mud, to no one's benefit. "Think I will be for a while."

"Fuck war," Karit said.

"Fuck war," Juniver agreed.

There was another silence. Juniver finished the cigar — officer's privilege — and knocked the ember into the damp leaves, where it sizzled and steamed. "You want the stub?" she asked. "For a souvenir."

Karit thought about it. "Nah," she said. Juniver nodded and dropped it, dusting off her hands as she leaned back against the tree trunk. A few white-pink petals drifted into her hair.

"You got anything waiting for you at home?" she asked eventually.

Karit laughed. "In tiny little Eastlake? If I did, I wouldn't be here. A trunk full of dresses, my mother waiting for me to give up this nonsense and marry a nice boy like the gods intended. You?"

Juniver gazed into the dark. "I fight because I like it, but I don't like it as much as I used to. I have a friend with a spellery in Caverly Crossing who's offered me a place if I want it. Might have two. If you want it."

"Yeah?" Karit glanced down at herself. "As Karit or Karith?"

"Whatever you like. You tell me how to introduce you, I'll do it. My friend hires a lot of women. If you go by Karith, you won't stand out. You can even wear some of those dresses if you want."

Karit sat up a little. "Your friend's a woman who owns a business? As herself? And women openly work for her?"

"Caverly Crossing's a little more relaxed than Eastlake."

"Wow." Karit tried to picture that. "Wow," she said again, eventually. "I... I would love to. But I don't know anything about magic."

"You'll learn fine," Juniver said, sounding entirely unconcerned. "If you have the knack for spellcraft, we'll find out quickly enough, and if you don't, you'll do well as a shop clerk or a bookkeeper. You've got a good head on your shoulders and you don't fuck around. "

"Thank you, m'lord."

"Ah, it's peacetime, you don't have to call me that now." Juniver gently bumped a fist against her shoulder. "Once we're out of uniform, it's Junevra, or June."

"Thank you, June," Karit said shyly. "You didn't need to do this for me."

"Us girls need to stick together," Juniver said. "The brotherhood of battle is a sisterhood too. Right?"

"Right, m — right."

"Besides," Juniver said, her voice soft and velvety as she took Karit's hand in the dark, "it gives me a chance to get to know you better."

Karit blushed hotly. Had her interest been so obvious? She knew that several of the men shared one another's bedrolls, some loudly claiming it was only until they got home to their women and others quietly but clearly out of preference; she hadn't been sure women did the same, but the seductive tone in Juniver's voice was unmistakable. "I'd like that too," she said, just as softly. "You're... you're really lovely."

Juniver smiled, squeezed her hand once, and then let go and climbed down from the tree. "We're leaving at the ass-crack of dawn," she called up, all officer again, "and I expect you there with your tent rolled up tight, so don't stay up in that tree too long."

Karit saluted. "Yes, m'lord."

Juniver returned the salute and headed back toward the campfires.

Karit sat in the dark, listening to snatches of victory songs carried on the wind. (It felt a bit unearned, with all the triumph belonging to the diplomats who had fought their battles from cushioned chairs while the troops slogged through the mud. But any peace was a victory.) A gentle spring breeze sent a few petals spiraling down past her, harbingers of delicious apples to come.

"Shopmistress Karith," she said tentatively, trying it out. "Clerk Karith. Spellworker Karith." It sounded ridiculous, like a cat named Dog. It sounded wonderful.

She hesitated, and then let out the even more ridiculous words that had been in her mind since she and Juniver had first learned each other's secrets: "Junevrawife Karith." So impossible. So impossible! But escape from Eastlake had seemed impossible, and working without disguising herself had seemed impossible, and peace had seemed impossible. Who knew what might happen in a big city like Caverly Crossing? Anything at all.

She slipped down from the tree and grinned all the way back to her tent.


End file.
